


Whatever Happened to the Fake Mona Lisa?

by dragonwings948



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (1963)
Genre: Epilogue, First Meetings, Friendship, Memories, Serial: s105 City of Death, UNIT Era (Doctor Who)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-21
Updated: 2020-05-21
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:41:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24299776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragonwings948/pseuds/dragonwings948
Summary: When the Director of the Louvre finds out the Mona Lisa is a fake, he calls in someone who's recovered artwork for him before: Professor River Song. But little does River know that Sarah Jane Smith is on the case too.
Relationships: Eleventh Doctor & River Song, Eleventh Doctor & Sarah Jane Smith, River Song & Sarah Jane Smith, The Doctor & Sarah Jane Smith
Comments: 8
Kudos: 33





	Whatever Happened to the Fake Mona Lisa?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LadyofLothal](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyofLothal/gifts).



On Thursday, July 15th, 2010 at 2:57pm, Jerum Boucher had the worst job in the entire world.

Months previous to this date, a decision was made. It wasn’t made lightly, but curiosity won out, and it was decided that the _Mona Lisa_ would be x-rayed.

The first restoration, performed 200 years ago, had gone badly wrong, and it was thought that an x-ray might be the best way to discover how to restore the beloved painting. So, carefully it was taken down. Carefully it was transported. Carefully it was brought into a lab. Carefully it was subjected to scrutiny.

But when they saw the x-rays, the words that came out of the technicians’ mouths were anything but careful.

And that’s how Jerum Boucher got the job of telling the Director of the Louvre that the _Mona Lisa_ was a fake.

* * *

On Thursday, July 15th, 2010 at 3:57pm Central European Time, River Song got a call.

It wasn’t often that her office phone rang; the University used much more advanced methods of communication like instant pages, robot messengers, and even occasionally telepathic summons. And yet, there was something River enjoyed about having a sleek black corded phone sitting on her desk. After some tinkering from the Doctor, it could now receive calls from just about anywhere or anywhere.

So, of course, the majority of the time she got telemarketers.

River picked up the phone in the midst of grading papers, expecting to tell off another pushy salesperson. But as soon as she heard the voice on the other line, she dropped what she was doing and gave him her full attention.

“Ah, Monsieur Loyrette! Quoi de neuf?” River wondered if this was about the incident with the _Dying Slave_ again.

He said the magic words and River dropped her pen. “The _Mona Lisa?”_ she breathed.

Monsieur Loyrette, Director of the Louvre, explained the situation in further detail. River considered that it wasn’t really her normal line of work, but she could make an exception for this painting. Even as Monsieur Loyrette was speaking, River punched the coordinates into her vortex manipulator.

“Je serai lá tout de suite,” she assured him. As soon as she hung up she grabbed a bag she always kept pack for circumstances such as these, pressed a button on her vortex manipulator, and disappeared.

* * *

Sarah Jane Smith stared hard at the _Mona Lisa,_ as if the painted woman’s smile would unveil her secrets.

 _A fake,_ Sarah Jane thought. She examined every inch of the painting, trying to find any kind of nuance. She knew very well, however, that the evidence wouldn’t be visible to her eyes. Apparently, the proof lay far beneath the layers of paint and glaze.

 _There have been reports of the Mona Lisa being a fake,_ Mr. Smith had told her yesterday.

 _Rumors or reports?_ she had asked.

_Official reports. The information is being tightly guarded._

That had gotten her attention. _Tell me the details._

And now here she was, one long train ride later, staring at the legendary painting itself amidst a packed crowd of oblivious admirers. People smiled, took pictures, and gawked like usual. Little did they know that possibly the most famous painting in the world wasn’t the real thing.

But how long had it been so? Sarah Jane had done some research and had found that its last disappearance had been for a day or two int he 70s under mysterious circumstances. Had it been a fake all along, or had it been switched then? Who could tell? She needed more information.

Someone bumped into Sarah Jane and she began backing away from the painting. The horde made it more difficult for her to complete her real reason for looking at the _Mona Lisa:_ watching for whoever had done this. Whether this was a result of alien influence or not, people who played these sorts of jokes tended to stick around to watch the fireworks.

Finally extricating herself from the packed bodies gathered around the barrier to the painting, Sarah Jane decided to circle the room. While she pretended to be interested in some of the other paintings, she was really watching carefully. She wasn’t entirely sure what she was looking for, but usually something anachronistic was a good place to start.

It took several rotations around the showroom to find it. Or, rather, _her._ Though the woman’s head of wild curls obscured her eyes as she looked down to take notes, Sarah Jane knew that she was eyeing the individuals in the room as intently as she was.

She passed the woman idly, looking directly at a painting but studying her in her peripheral vision. Sarah Jane barely contained a smile. Unless she was mistaken, the woman’s long sleeves hid the outline of a vortex manipulator on her wrist.

Sarah Jane’s heartbeat quickened. It seemed that this _did_ have alien influence after all.

She remained in the showroom, keeping the mysterious woman in sight at all times. She wasn’t acting suspicious, which put Sarah Jane on edge. The woman was clever.

Finally, the woman made her exit. Sarah Jane followed her at a safe distance through a few more showrooms until the woman walked into an elevator. Taking a good guess at where she was headed, Sarah Jane rushed down the stairs to the main exit. The woman was walking out the doors of the museum and Sarah Jane put a few people between them before following.

The woman’s hair made her easier to follow. Sarah Jane continued across the street, down a crowded sidewalk, and onto another street.

 _Where is she going?_ Sarah Jane wondered. The woman never turned her head once, and Sarah Jane wasn’t sure if that encouraged or worried her.

Finally, the woman seemed to slow down. She turned a corner onto a sparsely populated street, Sarah Jane turned right after her and then—

Gone.

Sarah Jane allowed herself a soft huff of disappointment as she continued walking. She wasn’t going to give up, even if she had to search every inch of Paris.

“Keep walking.”

An involuntary shudder ran down Sarah Jane’s spine as the threatening voice sounded in her ear. She felt something poke into her back.

“I have a weapon containing one billion volts of electricity ready to discharge at a twitch of my finger.” The curly-haired woman kept stride at Sarah Jane’s side, digging the weapon into her back as proof of her words. She grabbed Sarah Jane’s arm with her other hand. “I’m going to give you exactly one minute to explain what you did to the _Mona Lisa.”_

Though her heart thudded wildly in her ears, Sarah Jane kept her voice steady. “Me? I haven’t done anything. I’m here to investigate.”

“No, _I’m_ here to investigate. No one else knows about it.” The woman’s grip on her arm tightened. “Start talking.”

“Whoever you are, you can look me up.” Sarah Jane reached into her purse with her free hand and wrapped her fingers around her sonic lipstick. “My name is Sarah Jane Smith.”

The woman’s hold instantly slackened.

* * *

_“Sarah Jane Smith.”_

River looked down at the photograph in her hands and examined the smiling, youthful face next to a tall, lanky man wearing a ridiculously long scarf. “And she worked at UNIT?”

The Doctor smiled from across the library, his silly bowtie and tweed jacket somehow not so far off from the wildly eccentric look of his older self. He gazed down at the dismantled sonic screwdriver in front of him as he replied: “Sort of.” He paused and looked up as if seeing things from long ago. “She was a journalist. Still is, actually.”

River shuffled through a few more faded photographs and found one featuring a dramatic, white-haired Doctor with Sarah Jane and even Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, who looked like he was very much against the picture being taken. “Was she with you when you regenerated?” River asked, comparing the figures of the two very different Doctors.

“Yes,” he murmured sadly.

River considered his expression. This wasn’t the first companion she had learned about, but she could see there was something special about this Sarah Jane. “What happened to her?”

“She was clever,” he muttered, once again fiddling with screwdriver parts. “Clever, and so brilliant. She never let me get away with anything.” His hands stilled. “I left her. I was called away to Gallifrey so I left her on Earth and never went back.” Suddenly he was working again, intensely focused on his project. “She’s had a wonderful life. I’ve run into her a couple of times since then and she’s still just as brilliant.”

River stared at the original photo again and looked into the woman’s eyes, trying to read her story. What must it have been like? River had never met those Doctors, and maybe never would. Sarah Jane was an integral part of the Doctor’s life that River thought she might never fully understand.

The Doctor didn’t speak much the rest of the night. He might have said differently, but River knew he was thinking of Sarah Jane Smith.

* * *

Overwhelmed by the memory, River let her guard down. In a flash, Sarah Jane bent her arm behind her back and activated something that sounded like a sonic screwdriver. She smiled at River.

“There. I think you’ll find that your weapon is useless now.”

River let go of her entirely and came face to face with her, lowering her weapon. For a moment, River wasn’t sure what to say. She could have questioned the woman’s identity, but the sonic device all but proved it. Who would carry one but someone who knew the Doctor? In River’s brief lapse of caution, the woman could have done much worse than simply disable her weapon.

“Sarah Jane,” was all she could say, awed at the sight of her. Though she had obviously aged since her UNIT days, River could easily see the smiling girl from the photos in this woman’s face.

Sarah Jane’s expression became thoughtful. “You know the Doctor, don’t you?” She frowned. “Though I wonder how he could approve of your violent methods. UNIT, maybe; shoot now, talk later?”

River recovered herself. “The Doctor doesn’t approve of my methods; and neither does UNIT, for that matter. I’m a…freelancer of sorts.”

“But you’ve heard of me?” Behind the guarded look in her eyes was something like a glimmer of hope.

River couldn’t help but feel a flash of jealousy. She knew it was silly, but it had always been obvious that the Doctor cared about Sarah Jane very much. Yet, River knew the woman deserved her empathy more than her envy. They both loved the time lord more than he could ever love them.

“Yes,” River said, softening her tone. “Yes, of course. The Doctor told me about you.”

Sarah Jane smiled and put away her sonic device. “Well, I made the mistake of warring against the Doctor’s companion before when I could have been making a friend.”

River thought of telling her that she was a bit more than a companion, but decided against it.

“With both of us on the case,” Sarah Jane continued, “I’m sure we can figure out this _Mona Lisa_ mystery.” She extended her hand.

River shook her hand. “River Song. I don’t have any leads so far; you?”

Sarah Jane shook her head. “No. My next object was to actually see the x-ray photographs; I’m afraid they’re too locked up for even Mr. Smith to access.”

“I can help you there.” River glanced around to make sure no one was watching before producing a handheld tablet that showed the x-rays depicting the base layer of the _Mona Lisa._ In thick black letters, written in perfectly clear English, was the phrase: “This is a fake.”

Sarah Jane inhaled sharply and grabbed the tablet from River’s grasp. “I know that handwriting.”

“Really?” River had already studied it extensively and had never found anything familiar about it.

Sarah Jane met her eyes. It was only a brief look, but River knew. She sighed.

“I’m going to kill him.”

* * *

Three trans-dimensional messages, five phone calls, and ten hours later, the Doctor found himself on the receiving end of two pairs of withering stares. Though he’d been overjoyed to see the two of them initially, it had quickly become clear that they hadn’t called him here to visit.

This was _not_ how he’d thought this day would go.

He raised his hands in front of him defensively, backing into the TARDIS console. “I can explain.” The rest of his clever excuse died on his lips. Sarah he could usually manage. River he could sometimes handle. But both of them? He didn’t stand a chance.

“It was a long time ago,” he tried.

River raised an eyebrow and Sarah crossed her arms over her chest.

“You didn’t even _think_ to tell anyone?” Sarah asked. “You’ve sent everyone into a panic!”

“But it’s not a fake,” he protested. “No one needs to worry. It’s just as much of an original as the first _Mona Lisa_ that was in the Louvre.”

River’s eyes narrowed. “There was another one?”

Realising that every word was digging him into a deeper hole, he pulled his trump card. “I was saving the world!”

She rolled her eyes as if to say, “ _The usual excuse.”_

“It’s not us you have to explain to,” Sarah said. “You’ve got the Director of the Louvre scared out of his wits.”

The Doctor sighed and straightened his bowtie. “All right, I’ll explain.” He walked past them and headed out the TARDIS doors, wondering why the universe was never grateful even after all the times he’d saved it.

* * *

River and Sarah Jane smirked at each other behind the Doctor’s back, then burst into laughter as soon as he left.

“Did you see his face?” Sarah Jane asked, already breathless.

“Like his hand was caught in a cookie jar!” River hadn’t seen the Doctor that frightened in a long time, and remembering his guilty expression only made her laugh even harder.

Once they had calmed down, River sighed and leaned against the console. “I imagine the Doctor’s going to be a while taking care of that; how about lunch?” She rounded the console, preparing the TARDIS for dematerialisation.

Sarah Jane eyed her quizzically. “You can fly the TARDIS?”

“Oh yes, and I know the perfect little café. The wine is superb!”

She shook her head in disbelief and huffed another short laugh. “Lunch it is, then!”


End file.
